1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to the field of computer resource management and, in some embodiments, managing storage resources in a computer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various software tools exist for managing/modifying the configuration of a computer system. For example, there are tools for managing the software configuration (e.g. installing and removing software components as desired) as well as for managing the hardware configuration. Hardware configuration tools may include various tools for managing the storage devices in the computer system, and particularly the mapping of volumes to the storage devices. For example, tools involved in the restoration of a computer system from a backup image as well as tools involved in managing storage configuration on a functioning system (e.g. volume management tools and/or filesystem tools) may manage the mapping of volumes to storage devices.
Generally, the various configuration tools present a text or graphical view of the current configuration of a computer system and permit a user to make changes to the configuration. The changes are implemented on the current configuration, and the updated configuration may then be presented. While such an interface permits changes to be made, it is difficult for the user to envision the effect of the changes on the configuration prior to actually making the changes on the computer system. If the change has an undesirable effect, the user must then reverse the change. Both effecting the change and reversing the change may be lengthy, time-consuming operations. Also, in some cases, a change may not be reversible.
Exemplary configuration tools may include various volume management tools, which present the user with the current mapping of volumes to storage devices in the computer system and allow the user to make changes to the volume mapping. Exemplary products may include the VERITAS Volume Manager™ available from VERITAS Software Corporation (Mountain View, Calif.), including the VERITAS Visual Administrator™ or the VERITAS Enterprise Administrator™. Exemplary products further include the Windows Disk Administrator in the Windows™ operating system from Microsoft Corp. (Redmond, Wash.). Other tools may include tools involved in the restoration of a backed-up image of a computer system (either to that computer system or to a different computer system). Some such tools (e.g. the VERITAS Bare Metal Restore™ product from VERITAS Software Corporation) permit the user to change certain volume attributes as part of the restoration.